After tearing it up the last two seasons, the Estevan Haulers will not take the field this year.
There will be no bantam AA team under the Estevan Minor Baseball banner, as there were not enough players registered in the division.
In fact, the organization barely scraped together a house league bantam team, with only nine players signing up.
Minor ball president Kent Phillips chalked it up to low interest in that age group, a problem he said has followed them through the system.
"That age group has never had a large number, right back to mosquito. Boys that age don't play ball for some reason," he said.
When the same age group was in the mosquito division, he said there were only two teams and this year there are four mosquito teams.
The loss of bantam AA ball this year is a particular blow given the Haulers' success the last two years. They finished in first place in the Baseball Regina AAA standings in 2012 and 2013 and won the provincial AA title two years ago on home turf.
"We've had a strong group of Haulers teams ever since I can remember. They were strong before I started coaching," Phillips said.
There will also be no regular season peewee AA team, although a squad will be put together for provincials.
"There wasn't enough interest in playing AA the full season, but they wanted to play provincials," Phillips said.
The number of players is actually up in peewee, with two house league teams this year.
Aside from the Southeast Twins, the midget team that draws from across the region, that leaves the mosquito AA Sluggers as the only rep team under the Estevan Minor Ball banner this season.
There was no Sluggers team in 2012 or 2013 due to low registration, but Phillips said those numbers are up this year.
"It's great because that's where baseball starts, at that age. If that age is low in numbers and low in baseball calibre, that's going to affect your peewee and bantam as the ages go up."
Although there were no peewee or mosquito AA teams last year, and no bantam or peewees in 2014, Phillips said he's not concerned about the future of the AA program and that there are lots of players coming up from the younger divisions.
"I think we've got a group of coaches at the younger ages that are excited about ball and want to see our ball program succeed. I think going forward, as we push these low age groups through, we should be coming up (in registration numbers). We're up in every group except bantam this year. That young group, mosquito and younger, there are lots of kids."
At the lower levels, there are eight blast ball teams, three junior mites teams and three senior mites squads taking the field this season.
